The turning point for many Republicans to make Senator John McCain their nominee was their belief he could attract independents and Democratic voters.
Exhibit A in this case is Senator McCain’s health-reform plan. What a candidate cares about, he spends “trail time” (as in campaign) talking about, and Senator McCain has made health care a key policy initiative — and is now ramping up time, talent, and treasure on the health-care issue.
It is unusual in recent years for a Republican to lead with health-care reform, since it is widely perceived to be a Democratic-dominated issue. The reason Sen. McCain is leading with health care is because his plan is a winner.
We know because we just spent months writing a book that describes policy solutions to the American health-care crisis, and McCain’s health-care plan and the solutions found in America’s Health Care Crisis: Solved — Money Savings Solutions and Coverage for Everyone, fit hand-in-glove.
Money (or in health-care wonk speak: refundable tax credits) is the best way to level the health care tax-break playing field — and insure the uninsured.
Sen. McCain understands that the 47 million uninsured is not only an injustice, but an excuse for the big-government, Medicare-for-all crowd to hijack our health-care system in the name of insuring the uninsured.
As we explain in our book, the fairer, simpler, cleaner way of insuring the uninsured is through cash distributions for the purchase of health insurance — and funding the entire program through the ending of unfair tax breaks that give only employees with employer-provided health benefits thousands of dollars in tax breaks. Employees of employers who do not provide health insurance now not only get no health benefit, they also receive no tax break to buy their own policies.
Senator McCain’s emphasis on patient choice and control is another winning message. It means he trusts you to make better health-care decisions about your health with your doctor than can a government or corporate bureaucrat.
The current unfair tax breaks for health-care reinforce the trend among employers to not provide health insurance, and punish the uninsured with no tax break when they try to buy it. Sen.McCain will solve the uninsured problem in the United States, and do it without a massive new government program that denies you health-care freedom in the name of providing care at a price tag we cannot afford.
Just allowing Americans to purchase health insurance across state lines will destroy the health insurance monopolies that keep prices high and choices low in some states. The situation we need to avoid is now the reality in Senator Clinton’s home county of Westchester, New York, where the average HMO premium for a family is $34,072.92.
That price is no typographical error, and is what happens when government controls are imposed on the private sector — New York State is a model of what not to do in health-care policy.
McCain’s policy is to allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines in the anti-New York health reform plank of his plan. This will increase choices, lower costs, and most importantly, bring more Americans into the folds of having health insurance.
Sen. McCain, in doing so, will have stolen the 47 million uninsured stick from the hands of the Democrats, with which they intend to beat the country into submission to big-government, big-deficit health care.
— J. Patrick Rooney and Dan Perrin are the authors of America’s Health Care Crisis Solved, published May 2, 2008 by Wiley.